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by ciaan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaan/pseuds/ciaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Together, apart, together. Originally posted May 2006 (in the day when this was my first SPN fic).</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jfc013 and tsuki_no_bara for betaing.

Out of the corner of his eye Dean can see Sam in the passenger seat, holding one of Dean's knives and slowly turning it over and over, staring at the glint of sunlight off metal. The wind whips in off the highway and through their hair, and Sam's face is blank and hard under the wildly flying strands.

Dean can almost taste Sam's pain, feel it bitter in his veins. A litany of guilt and failure roils through his head. Something bad happened to Sam, and Dean didn't stop it.

But surpassing that is a brilliant, singing joy that nothing can mar, because Dean's little brother has come back to him.

***

The light dies in the werewolf's eyes, leaving them as dull and dim as the rest of the world, as grey as its matted fur. Dean stands over the corpse, gun still smoking, and he isn't triumphant.

He's destroying evil and helping the innocent, getting the job done, getting revenge. He can even bury himself down in fleeting pleasures sometimes. But it's all as bleak and distant as passing scenery glimpsed through grimy windows streaked with cold rain. The fact of Sam's absence strikes him all over again when he wakes each morning. He's prepared to go on like this for as long as he has to, for the rest of his life, because there's nothing else to do.

He hunts.

***

Dad's words hang in the air. _If you leave, don't expect to come back._ Dean tightens his grip on both of their shoulders where he was trying to pry them apart. He knows that all Sam can hear is the last part. _Don't expect to come back._ He can see it echoing in Sam's eyes.

Sam shakes him off, turns away. Dad stands there. Dean stands there. All Dean can hear is the first part. _If you leave, if..._

He reaches out and touches the sleeve of Sam's denim jacket, but Sam keeps moving, and Dean's fingers slip away like a salted ghost.

It's almost two days before he and Dad say anything to each other, and then it's Dean asking what Dad wants for dinner.

***

Dean ignores the applications. He doesn't believe in them. Sam might as well be writing up plans to build a bridge to the moon. Dean graduated from high school a year and a half late, because they moved around so much, and because he didn't try at first. It was almost all useless knowledge and he had better things to do with his time.

He doesn't ignore the acceptance letters and scholarship offers, because Sam doesn't show them to him.

Not until it's too late.

***

They're down in Louisiana, and they have cupcakes for Sammy's eighth birthday before going out on the hunt. There's a family of giant rats that's been terrorizing the town. Dad lures away and destroys the parents, and Dean and Sammy excitedly sneak into their lair and shoot the litter of babies. They barely have any fur yet, and their eyes are still stuck shut. Dean watches as Sammy examines the miniature toes on the corpses, and then cuts one open for him so his little brother can see the heart and lungs.

Dad comes back bleeding from a gash on his arm, and Dean bandages it up while Sammy puts away the guns.

On the return drive to the motel the two boys fall asleep, curled up together in the back seat with the night breeze coming in through the open windows.


End file.
